Information published on 7 March 2012 in the UIC electronic newsletter "UIC eNews"
Nr 281.

Switzerland: Basel-Nord terminal is the answer to forecast growth in traffic

Keywords

Combined Transport

Freight

The results of the study commissioned by SBB Cargo and the Swiss Rhine ports on the operation of the Basel-Nord site are now available. The future Basel-Nord terminal is to become a trimodal hub for sea containers, thus making the seaport-rail transport chain the focus of the project. In future, containers will be loaded from ship to rail or from one freight train to another. According to the study, the terminal will operate as a trimodal centre once it is completed, with a connection to rail, road and the Rhine. This will guarantee maximum flexibility during operations, enabling capacity to be adapted to traffic fluctuations in cases where one mode of transport is temporarily facing a bottleneck.

In order to build and make the terminal operational as quickly as possible, construction is scheduled to take place in two stages. The initial phase consists in building a basic terminal connected to the railway network and introducing a service to transship containers between freight trains or from rail to road. In its final configuration the facility will be connected to the Rhine and developed into a fully functional railway terminal. The connection between the terminal and the waterway will effectively link these two environmentally-friendly modes of transport.